28 CHATS ON ANGLING. 



proffered imitation may produce a rise or two, but somehow or other the 

 fish don't take hold as you think they ought. You are inclined to lose 

 your calmness of mental balance, to cast without sufficient care and with a 

 half-dried fly. In desperation you put on a fair-sized red quill, fish more 

 carefully, and probably get better results. 



The main charm, however, lies in the fact that the advent of 

 Ephemera Danica does bring up the big fish of the water in a way that 

 no other fly food does or can. Hence its popularity, and in waters where 

 the May fly is hatched in quantity, and there are heavy, big fish that as a 

 rule find cannibalism pay better than duns, then the May fly has a real 

 value. In other waters, however, were these big monsters taken out in 

 order to secure a larger numerical stock of comparatively small but sizeable 

 fish, I would have none of it ; I would prefer to extend my angling 

 season rather than take a large bulk of it condensed into one week 

 of questionable pleasure. 



Certainly, the May fly season comes at about the best time of the year 

 to enjoy angling. A fine week about the commencement of June is most 

 enjoyable on any river. All nature is at its best — leafy June, when 

 sauntering by the riverside, even with scanty sport, is in itself a pleasure 

 not to be despised. 



Mr. Sidney Buxton, in his admirable " Fishing and Shooting," 

 graphically describes a day in the Carnival time, when he grassed thirty 

 fish from two pounds down, and of another when he creeled forty ; but, 

 good sportsman as he is, I rather fancy he would have enjoyed even more 

 a day with half to a third of the basket when each fish had been stalked 

 and picked out with a small fly. Not for a moment would I suggest or 

 imply that equal care is not needed in casting with the May fly if you 

 wish to fill your creel ; but, all said and done, a bungling cast will often 

 secure a good fish with that lure which would inevitably have put him 

 down and scared him had he been feeding upon the ordinary flies. It is 

 very noticeable nowadays how capricious the rise is. Indiscriminate weed 

 cutting has almost entirely eradicated the May fly from some waters, and 

 quite entirely on others — a boon to some minds, my own included, but a 

 boon that bears sour fruit in other ways, for irregular and injudicious 

 weed-cutting hits other fly food hard. It is curious, also, that in places 

 where more judicious weed farming has been resorted to of late the May 



